This invention relates in general to firearms and more particularly to safety mechanisms for automatic hand firearms.
Safety mechanism to prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm are well known in the art. One type of safety is a bolt that slides transversely to the longitudinal axis of a firing pin and is adapted to engage a recess formed on the firing pin. The safety bolt is spring biased to engage the recess and thereby block a longitudinal movement of the firing pin. A safety release mechanism, activated when a trigger is pulled to fire the weapon, pushes the safety bolt out of the recess to release the firing pin just prior to firing.
While such safety mechanisms are reliable during normal handling of a weapon, they can fail to prevent an accidental discharge of a shot when the weapon falls and strikes a hard surface or is otherwise subjected to an impact. More specifically, an accidental discharge is likely to occur when the weapon has an orientation on impact such that one component of the impact force drives the safety member out of the recess on the firing pin while at the same time a second component of the impact force drives the striking pin forward against a priming cap of a cartridge. The forward movement of the firing pin can be direct, or through a backward movement of a slide which carries the firing pin against the hammer.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a reliable safety system that prevents the accidental discharge of a firearm due to an impact that releases another safety device that is normally positioned to block a forward movement of the firing pin.
Another object of the invention is to provide an impact safety system that prevents the firing pin from striking the hammer through movement on impact of a slide carrying the firing pin.
A further object of this invention is to provide a safety mechanism that achieves these objects while being rugged and having a relatively low cost of manufacture.